ces for whom
they were made. Taken as a whole, they suggest a great confusion of
ideas and many curious contradictions concerning the purpose of man's
earthly life and the destiny of his soul.

Has man really a soul, at all? In what part of his body is it located?
What ground is there for imagining that it is any more immortal than his
heart or his eye? We can study the eye and dissect it and arrive at a
fairly accurate idea of how it works. We know that it can be
blinded--put out; also we know that if anything stops the heart from
beating, the eye, the brain and our other functions cease to operate and
become transfixed in death. Why should this not apply as well to the
soul, if there is a function in man which goes by that name?

Enough has been said to indicate a few of the difficulties which stand
in the way, when we approach the consideration of man's spiritual
nature. A study of the various religions and spiritualistic beliefs
which are current in the world to-day would be a tedious task for the
average mind and would probably be of little practical use or help to
any one.

The same may be said about the scientific theory of evolution. That is
essentially an effort of the intellect, focusing the attention on
details, processes and stages of development in living things and
arriving no nearer to a solution of the unexplainable than we were in
the beginning.

Suppose I happen to be impressed by the beauty and wonder of an orange
tree, with its golden, luscious fruit, its delicately tinted and
deliciously scented blossoms, its graceful leaves and branches, its
symmetrical trunk so firmly rooted in the ground? Merely as a piece of
machinery, as a little factory, designed to manufacture a certain kind
of edible product, it is far more ingenious, economical and generally
marvellous than anything the combined brains of mankind have been able
to design throughout the centuries. It is automatic, self-lubricating,
self-repairing and goes on, year after year, in fair weather or foul,
turning out its brand of juicy pulp, done up charmingly in little yellow
packages. How does it operate? How does it always manage to get the
necessary raw materials from the earth and the air? How do the roots and
the leaves and the sap ever contrive to convert these into perfume and
blossoms and pulp and pigment?

Now suppose a scientific intellect comes along and, after investigating,
dissecting, analyzing, eventually holds out before my